Exactly 90 days ago I set out to my 90-days-challenge. Now, it is time to review some results. And restart.

Review

I was doing quite okay, but I was cut short, thrown off my tracks, at the beginning of November. I noticed a strange mole, and within two hours of visiting the doctor the next day I had to undergo surgery to have it removed. All the progress I made up until then seemed worthless, and I was really down for two weeks, until I got the all-clear signal that the cancer was not malicious and removed completely.

Needless to say, I did not take my challenges too seriously after this event. I did not want to talk to people, and I did not wanted anyone to know about it. There was nothing I could do but wait for the results.

Looking back at the 90 days, I still got a lot accomplished:

My work goals

I cleaned out my work schedule

I hired an offshore-company to help me with programming duties. This still needs a lot of work, but I really hope that this could provide me with a solution to my productivity bottlenecks.

My financial goals

I am still not on a regular budget, but I cut my spending (a little bit, Lego and some activities still cost a chunk of money) and managed to buy in regular stores. Yeah, what an accomplishment – but you should have seen my earlier style of acquiring groceries. I also cleaned out some contracts that I do not need anymore. I still had a few bigger expenses, but mainly because those were remnants of my previous spending habits.

My personal goals

This is an area where I was on a good course. This is also an area where I became really sloppy again. The only thing that I really managed to do (because it was a one-off task) was booking my flights, but as far as the habit-building got, I failed. This will be my focus on the “restart” section – building lasting habits.

My physical goals

Again, I was on a good track. Until my health issue. I was drinking too much again, and did not work out for the past month.

But hey – I stopped smoking. That’s something 🙂

Recap

I accomplished a lot of things, but failed in other areas. Mainly the habit building.

The main reason (that I could control) was that I tried to change too much at once, instead of gradually building up. I am going to change that in the Restart.

Restart

Now it’s time to make plans for the future. My new goal is to make a list, with one thing that I want to keep doing, and adding one small item each day. At the end of the day, I want to have a “check” symbol on at least 80% of the list, with no item not checked for more than two days in a row.

This is a loophole, yes. But a nice one. Yesterday, my first item on the list, my only goal for this day, was “Don’t drink”. I did that (or did not do it, depending on how you look at it :-D). Day accomplished. But it’s not like I am never going to drink again. Christmas is coming up, and I love having a drink with my friends.

I do not know yet how I am going to keep this list posted. I created one post, and I think I will just add a new item on top of that list every day. It can be found here.